Turning back the clock on Big Ben

As Cleveland Browns fans mourned another lost week end to the Steelers, Bill Hershey, a former Beacon Journal colleågue, recalled an earlier piece in Sports Illustrated  that told of Ben Rothlisberger's youthful rise to super-stardom while  playing  at Findlay High School his senior year.  I offer it to Browns fans not as a gloating Steelers fan (that would be a cheap gloat  these days!)  but rather as a vignette from an earlier day when Big Ben didn't get to start as a quarterback until his senior year. Notice how he took advantage of that opportunity to throw for a record 4041 yards and 54 touchdowns. (Cliff Hite, his high school coach at the time, is today a Republican state senator from Findlay.)

Here's the word from Hershey:

At Findlay High School, Rothlisberger was  captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams.  He did not play quarterback until his senior year, giving way to the coach's son, Ryan Hite.  Instead, Roethlisberger played wide receiver because as Coach Cliff Hite  explained to the Toledo Blade, "My son  throwing to Ben was a better combination" He said the reason for passing over Ben as the QB could be simply explained:  "I'm a nationally known knucklehead."

At the same time, Ryan Hite was a talented athlete, too. As far as knuckleheads go, it's a serviceable word for the Browns front office,  which didn't see the point of drafting Big Ben.

Johnny Football: Get over it. I ain't changing

Has there ever  been a rookie professional athlete  like Johnny Manziel who burst onto the stage with less aplomb and more defiance of his critics?  After five fun-loving weekends away from the field, dutifuly recorded in the media,  Manziel drew a line in the mythical sand to reporters at the Browns' site in Berea, telling them that he has absolutely no thought of changing his lifestyle, no matter what anybody else thinks.

"I am not going to change who I am for anybody," he declared,  adding that he didn't want to live in a shell.

As we all know, professional football is a brutal sport, and as a quarterback, Manziel's  moment of further reflection on his life may come  with the arrival in his face  of a crushing defensive end who gets paid to ruin the other guy's week end.

On the Browns, sewers, Koch brothers and Ted Cruz coloring book

As we've occasionally noted, the Browns always seem to make more news off the field than on the field.  Today it was team  owner Jimmy Haslam's turn with an open letter to the fans assuring them that  the  front office  knows exactly  what it's doing, by God,  despite  the long delay in hiring a new coach.   Responding to critics who wonder why seven other teams that fired coaches have now replaced them, Haslam declared that the recruiters are taking a methodical approach to make sure they get it right this time.

May I speculate that Haslam may be creating a new title for  Chudzinski's successor.  It will be called the "interim-interim coach" that will allow the team to hire and fire an interim coach - which is the way it has been for years albeit with the title of permanent one-year coaches.  The title change is believed to be a first for the NFL.  If that confuses you, you have a lot of company.

* * * * *

Speaking of delays, it is  now  reported that the environmental expert hired at great cost by Federal Judge John Adams to assess Akron's court-delayed sewer plan has approved the  city's plan, which had been approved by the U.S. and Ohio EPAs.    Which is where some of us came in.  If you want to connect the dots, you shouldn't have too much trouble. In this matter, the dots are bigger than pie plates.

* * * * *

The Koch brothers, the billionaire industrial sugar daddies of the Tea Party, have  already taken a major stride forward in converting America into the land of the free and home of the fringe.    The New York Times reported that they have injected $20 million into congressional campaigns in a bid to buy the U.S. House and Senate. Some of the money will also doubtless show up in Ohio Gov. John Kasich's reelection  campaign. The Kochs' targets are progressive  candidates who support Obamacare. The game plan also attacks any political move supporting environmental upgrades.  By now you surely know the drill on the right.  If not, fair warning.

* * * * *
You can be sure that nothing worse can happen all day after an adult  son shows up in a playful spirit to give you two slick coloring  books - "Cruz to the Future" and "The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids".   Any mention of the Tea Party, of course, is self revealing, so here's a quick account of the one lovingly dedicated to Sen. Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz.

As you might expect, you can color an imposing sketch of Cruz holding a rifle (Second
amendment story line) to show off  the right to bear arms,  and other pages  dedicated to Cruz's patriotic themes and politically correct conservative positions.  Told you.  Even the Times' Sunday Puzzle seemed less painful  after that.  

Browns search: Rebuilding sand castles at high tide

The Browns have interviewed -  or will interview - so many prospects on their list to hire a new coach that it wasn't until this morning that an office janitor in Berea happened to see a calendar scheduling  an interview next week with a coach they just fired -   Rod Chudzinski.

When reporters asked Team CEO Joe Banner about the odd entry on the calendar, he  said there may have been some things "on the upside" about Chud that have since turned up after he left.  "If nothing else," Banner explained, "it's entirely possible that Chud has now had plenty of experience to be the perfect transitional coach for 2014 until we find someone else for 2015."

Meantime, the great media mentioning game has now turned to Jim Tressel, who needs no introduction at this point in his career. He's widely mentioned  now in the media's   Department of Contagious Speculation as a candidate for the Browns, which have earnestly  - if clumsily - tried to rebuild sand castles at high tide.  But he's been teasingly coy about his next move, whether as University of Akron  President or Browns coach.

In fairness to Chud, as well as the team's choice for 2015, it would be charitable if
Tressel announced something soon enough to cancel further interviews with Chud,who is out of work with no unemployment insurance. .

P.S.  You heard it here first: neither Sam Rutigliano nor Knute Rockne has come up in any of the conversations.  

An opening day disruption of a workaday world

The opening day of a new season is quite likely to be a fan's highest  moment of anticipation. No games lost so far. Only 30 pct of the players aching (or worse) from  injuries suffered during the exhibition games. All of the coaches with game faces that disguise their deepest fears that their franchise  quarterback will be flattened on his way to the sidelines by a vengeful linebacker.

Today's Plain Dealer  explained it all in a big front-page spread: "A magic day." A 7-member panel of the paper's sports experts  curated the fans' expectations by unanimously predicting a home-team victory over Miami, if only by a couple of points. Like the team, the writers began the day with perfect records.

The Beacon Journal had other ideas about what was newsworthiest on this day of fantasies.   Its Page One splash covered LeBron James' impending wedding with the usual outsize photos. Somehow, even in a tux,  he looked like he was cut out to be a tight end.

Within 24 hours, of course,  for the Browns (and the eager forecasters),  it all could change.

As a loyal Steelers birther,  I have learned to allow myself far more margin, figuring they could finish in last place - or win the Super Bowl.   With the Steelers, there is always the leading question of whether Big Ben will finish a game on his feet.

If not, consider this:  There's always next year. Are you with me?

Never too late for payback by a deceased Browns fan

OK, fun time from a Columbus Dispatch obituary:

When long time Cleveland Browns fan Scott Entsminger died in Mansfield, his obit airily included his reputed last words: "(Scott) respectfully requests six Cleveland Browns pall bearers so the Browns can let him down one last time."

His brother Bill explained that the Browns line was an inside joke in their family. "We had knocked that around before," Bill said. "It was nudge-nudge, wink-wink, whichever one of us goes first".

.

The new stadium: Brightness at noon?

Now that the Browns' stadium has been officially named FirstEnergy Stadium, there  is a buzz over what it all means to the team's future. Overlooked in  the glitzy fanfare the past few days is the need for a motto that will identify the team's brighter place in the minds of fandom.

Maybe I can help with a few suggestions:

Where there's light, there's hope!

Browns: Cleveland's premier sports outlet!

Our promise for an electrifying season!

The light at the end of the tunnel!

A light-hearted sports experience!

          The team to  socket to 'em!   











   

Where there's life (sort of), there's now Coach Chud

As if you might not have already  known it, the Northeast Ohio versions of the Sporting News are massively reporting that the Browns have a new coach. The Beacon Journal and Plain Dealer arrived Saturday with the front pages dominated by the Browns' hiring of their latest find: Rob Chudzinski, to try his hand with the long hapless team.  Beneath his wide angle photo the headline told me that he's "eager to bring excitement back to the lakefront".  Not to be outdone with its commitment to the sports world, the Beacon Journal turned over half of the front page  to report that "new coach enjoys life on cloud nine."

That was just the start  as the photos grew on their path to the sports section.

It was left to Bud Shaw, the PD's always readable sports columnist, to  pull back on the reins of  native enthusiasm with a column  topped by a headline  assessing the climactic event  as, " no drum roll, but a 'process'".  Shaw  verdict;  "Chudzinski  hire brings a minimal 'wow' factor."

I figured that would more than substantially cover the team's latest sports spectacular until both papers arrived on Sunday. A commanding illustration of the "Browns' family" stretched  across the mid-section of P1  to inform us that "Chudzinski embraces loyalty, dedication".  The BJ meanwhile retreated to the sports section with a lead story and another big Chud photo  with the message that he is seen as a   "man of vision".

 Don't get me wrong.  I'm a voracious pro football fan.  But wasn't there more than enough of this hyperventilating when Mike Holmgren was brought in as the wizard who restore the team to respectability?  Yep.  And he's no longer in the front office in the wake of another change in team ownership.

So let's just wish Coach Chud well while keeping in mind the TV commercial that boasts of something "magical" happening at McDonald's.  If that ever happens to the Browns, I can't imagine how the papers - if they're still around - will  display that event.  Is there a Cloud 10?

Well, Kelly made good copy while it lasted

Foolish me!

Why did I allow myself to be  so gulled by the gushing media reports  all week telling me that Oregon Ducks head coach  Chip Kelly would be on the Browns' payroll in the 2013 season?  I should have known better. This was  just another Browns' failed  gold rush that has encouraged so many previous coaches and quarterbacks to take a sabbatical on Lake Erie.

The Plain Dealer called this spectacle to my attention this morning with the headline on the sports page:

Browns walk away from Kelly; report says he's staying at Oregon.

The reach for gridiron greatness  met the same fate  as John Boehner's Plan B.

So now there will be the usual speculation  over the possible  replacement of the replacement of the replacement, etc.   Even the Plan C second choice, Syracuse coach Doug Marrone, went to Buffalo to coach the Bills.

If I may butt in, I would call attention to a large cutout of  former Notre Dame and Akron U.  coach Gerry Faust standing in Summit Mall.  It's  sponsored by the Crystal Clinic Orthopedic Center with Gerry's praise of how well the clinic treated his hip and knee problems.

If the new  Brownsmeisters can find a way to make it worthwhile, Gerry might be available now that he is free of bodily pain.

Better yet, he lives just down the road and there wouldn't be any moving expenses.

P.S. As I noted in the previous post, the Browns are always more interesting after the season than when the team is on the field.

Is another Kelly heading into a shipwreck with Browns?

Did  you notice that the Cleveland Browns are on the verge (if they haven't already done so) of hiring a  head coach, Kelly by name.  No, not Shipwreck Kelly, although with that foreboding nickname it could bear a resemblance in a year or two after the new guy arrives in Cleveland.

This particular Kelly is  Chip Kelly, the  successful coach of the  Oregon Ducks, one of the winningest  and most entertaining teams in college football.  Anybody who has seen the Ducks on ESPN could swear they were recruited from an Olympic  track team.

And so the Browns will begin the 2013 season with their seventh coach since   2000 alone, with the departing  Pat Shurmur following Mangini, Crennel, Robiskie, Davis, and Palmer - if  trivial pursuit is your thing. At the same time, they have started 18 quarterbacks!

Help me. I lost track half way back across the decade.  Let's just say the lineup stretches from Brandon Weeden and Thaddeus Lewis to Doug Pederson, Tim Couch and Spergon Wynn in 2000.

There are more turnovers  in Brownsland than in a giant bakery.  Tim Hagan, the Cleveland politico, once lamented to me after his candidate lost that "in Cleveland it had to be in the water."

I don't know  why I'm telling you this, but we do need a holiday from  the other blood sport on Capitol Hill.

The Browns are all over  the papers these days with the pending news of a  new coach.    But I do have to ask:  Why are they always more interesting after still  another  dismal season than they are when the team is on the field?  

Plain Dealer: Punting out of trouble

FOR ANYONE wondering why the Plain Dealer's veteran Cleveland Browns writer, Tony Grossi, was yanked from the beat forevermore, Thom Fladung, the paper's managing editor, offered his explanation on a Cleveland radio show. Grossi, he said, had declared on Twitter that Browns owner Randy Lerner was a "pathetic figure" and the "most irrelevant billionaire in the world."

Grossi's remarks were intended to be private but they weren't shielded, to his later dismay. If he had used the same language describing Mitt Romney, give or take several million, he would have been spared his demotion. But pro football is very big business and despite the paper's denial that the Browns front office had called for the writer's put-down, surely Lerner had a lot to say about it through one channel or another.

It the Browns were at least competitive over the past decade or so, the editors might have been excused for telling Grossi to go to his room. Does anybody want to defend the owner's relevancy?

Oh, Fladung did concede that Grossi was indeed a "very good beat writer" but that his next assignment at the paper still hasn't been determined.

Fair warning to Grossi's successor.

A new name for Cleveland Touchdown Club?

NOW THAT THE CLEVELAND BROWNs have dismissed six-pointers from their playbooks, I'm hearing rumors that the Cleveland Touchdown Club is changing its name to the Cleveland Field Goal Club. Is that true?

The Cavs splash to PD and BJ front pages

THE WEEK HAS given us sports news of Biblical proportions: The woeful LeBron-less Cleveland Cavaliers nailed the top pick in the collegiate draft! We weren't even slightly aware of the importance of this event until the Plain Dealer ecstatically stretched it across large portions of its front pages two days in a row (the Beacon Journal was more reserved, opting for only a single day's Page One tribute that told us HOW THE DRAFT WAS WON, offering us a cutout of a numbered pingpong ball gently held by somebody's hand. There were also photos of promotional T-shirts and Cavs owner Dan Gilbert's 14.year-old son, Nick,who was around to represent the team in the draft. The Plain Dealer merely teased us by inquiring, What Are the Odds? It joyfully called the fateful moment a "stroke of luck". Cool.

As a sports outsider who has survived decades of Cleveland sports despair, I am fully aware that none of what I just said will earn me anything but disgrace from the media and the Cavs' other partisans. All the more so because the the draft occurred as the Cleveland Indians have risen from the ashes to dominate their division this spring.

Alas, with all of the good news, it would be another event of of Biblical proportions that would interfere with the celebrations hereabouts. That, of course, would be the Rapture that a California seer has forecast will occur at 6 p.m. Saturday (Just when I got a new computer and learned how to operate most of it.!) But Harold Camping, the 89-year-old zillionaire who has predicted the end of days, staunchly defends the idea that when the violent end comes, everyone will be divided between the saintly and sinful for their next stop.

I have my doubts. And I really don't think God is so vindictive that He would rain on the Cavaliers and Indians parades. Besides if I am wrong who will still be hanging around to gloat, "Told you so!."

On the other hand, if it doesn't happen as planned, we will still have those gloom-and-doom GOP presidential candidates with their daily warnings about America's dreadful end of days under President Obama. As Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann were saying just the other day..,.

Pro Football: Out of "luck" only in closing moments

ALLOW ME to change the subject to professional football, of which I am a nutty fan. With sports, one can be nutty without endangering fragile world peace, encouraging the wrath of Rush Limbaugh or forcing John Boehner to choke up. Still, in the wake of Sunday's games it was possible to hear some things that were nuttier than others. Not that they changed anything, which is a good reason why sports is so important in our workaday cares.

For example, you could not pick up a paper or listen to a sportscast that didn't accuse the Pittsburgh Steelers or Cleveland Browns of being lucky to have won because of their opponents' blunders.

The Steelers won in overtime against the Buffalo Bills because, as "luck" would have it, a Buffalo receiver dropped a pass in the end zone that would have changed the outcome. (Actually, the crestfallen receiver openly blamed his misfortune on God's last-minute intervention instead. Honest.)

And the Browns won, as luck would have it, because Carolina's field goal kicker missed the payoff zone with seconds remaining.

Being inexpert on the fortunes of winning and losing, I still must wonder why the witnesses to these terrible moments (for the losers, at least) don't make a big deal out of a mishandled end zone pass in the first quarter of the game, or a stray field goal attempt in the second quarter or any other game-changing episode that unluckily (?) doesn't happen in the closing seconds.

It's quite nutty to raise these questions, I know. There is doubtless a perfectly rational explanation by the deeper thinkers, but I don't know what it is.

As Chuck Noll, the former Steelers coach, once explained to a reporter who asked whether the Steelers would have won if, by chance, an onside kick had worked by traveling the necessary 10 yards. "Winning," said Noll, "has nothing to do with geography."

LeBrowns replacing LeBron on the lake?

NOW THAT LeBron is GONE, the media on the lake have found an emergency replacement to fill up the front page, as it did in today's Plain Dealer re the Browns' first practice session. The huge headline over a photo, story and Pluto column was "Plenty of excitement, and it's only first day". Right. May we now refer to the team as the LeBrowns?

Mangini's Browns: Fourth down and Forty

WHAT CAN THIS diehard Steelers fan from Western Pennsylvania say about the Cleveland Browns that won't be irresponsibly offensive to their fans who have already decided that the team is offensive? I've been thinking about it for some time, but have always retreated from the role of an interloper in what is, after all, the worst stink on the lake since some overly sincere, if misguided, folks failed to recall Dennis Kucinich from his huge desk in City Hall. Fortunately for him, the enmity wasn't unanimous and he seems to be living reasonably well as a congressman and quadrennial presidential candidate. The same fate doesn't appear to be imminent for the Browns.

It's been tough on me, too, as friends from around the country assume that anyone living this close to Cleveland owes it to the city to root for the Browns. I've tried to point out their error but they simply conclude that I am in denial. It was that way, too, when we lived in Columbus and the neighbors reacted in shock when I told them I was planning to mow the lawn on the afternoons when the Buckeyes were pummeling their opponents. It wasn't enough to explain that I happened to be an alum of another Big 10 school, the University of Illinois, whose football team is rarely anything to brag about even though the school does have a very nice campus.

But I was emboldened to speak out about the Browns after hearing their soon- to- retire running back , Jamal Lewis, complain that Coach Mangini was driving the players "too hard". That may be, although it's not NFL friendly to criticize a coach in public. I think it would be more deferential to the boss to observe that receivers are paid to catch passes on those occasions when the quarterback succeeds in throwing the ball in their general direction. But being a good sport myself, unlike Mark Antony, I'm not here to bury Mangini nor praise him.

But I do want to give some moral support to the overwrought Browns fans who hate the Steelers for winning so much. What they don't know is that Steeler fans such as yours truly suffer desperately through an entire winning season, game by game, with the playoffs and Super Bowl at stake. It can be most unpleasant to see a single fumble or interception that could be an immediate signal that this one will be a defeat that you will long mourn. On game day when the team isn't on network TV, we watch the clock, trash the NY Times crossword, absently nibble lunch without having a clue to what's on the plate and head for a sports bar to watch our team for a couple of hours of sweaty palms.

To Browns fans I say: when you are pulling for a loser it isn't nearly as agonizing as it is when your team is a winner. Trust me. I speak from experience. I'm also a Pirates fan, if you know what I mean.

Was the mayor really raking leaves?

WEEKEND LEFTOVERS:

What? A whole week end passed and nobody called 911 to report that Mayor Plusquellic was seen in Halloween costume blowing leaves into his neighbor's yard?

The November issue of Harper's Index reports that the volume of the average human brain has shrunk 10 pct. over the past 10,000 years, which only partly explains Glenn Beck.

Connecticut Sen. Zelig (a.k.a. Joe Lieberman) is telling his critics that his waffling is really his effort to "do what's best for America." What would be best in his case is simply to get an offshore pizza route.

Since the National Football League has always been committed to parity among the teams, might it not consider giving the Browns 10 downs for each series - or, one per yard. It's a start.

A months-long study by McClatchy Newspapers revealed that Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street giant, quietly believed the housing market would crash as it was selling $40 billion in securities based on 200,00o risky mortgage loans. The scam has produced soaring profits ($50 billion plus in 2009, $20 billion in year-end bonuses) for the firm while its clients lost hundreds of millions of dollars and left countless homeless. It recalls the words of mobster Carmine Sabatini in The Freshman when he was questioned about his financial shell game:

"This is an ugly word - this scam. This is business. If you want to be in business, this is what you do."

The four horsemen of the Brownies clips

Dirge for Edwards, Winslow, Jurevicius & Stallworth

All four of the Browns' honored receivers

were considered to be golden retrievers.

But now that Braylon's out

There's good reason to shout

They were no more than pathetic deceivers.

On how not to be a good sport

THE CLEVELAND BROWNS' decision to charge $25 for parking might encourage fans to take alternate action and dock their cars at the Lake Erie marina. It's something to think about when the team's new coach, Eric Mangini, laments that uninspired practice sessions mean that the players are tired.....One other pro football note: Brett Favre is tiresome.

Historic rescue plan?

THE TAG on the half-page pictorial ad in this morning's Plain Dealer  is:

             BROWNS HISTORY COMES ALIVE.

It's a start.